Seriously. They're one of the more fiendish units available to Corruption's new side, the Zann Coalition, and are launched by an otherwise unarmed dude who shuffles about dragging a mysteriously bulging sack behind him. Give him a target and he'll produce an Ewok from his bag, strap a bomb to the fluffy fella's chest, point him in the right direction and send him off. The ensuing combination of explosion and anguished, slightly surprised squeal is nothing short of poetry.

Has there ever been a better RTS unit??

I'll be picking this up as soon as I see it. Not necessarily because of the exploding Ewoks (though a great bonus), but the rest of the expansion looks great too.

Because depending on who is working, depends on which store I will shop at. So it took the third store to figure out where one of the cool "PC gamer guys" was working today.

The other two, I had to explain that "Yes, it is a PC game, and NO I didn't preorder it, and Yes I understand PC gaming is dead, and NO I do not want to preorder whatever shit they are pushing today.".

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All truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer

I will let you know tonight or tomorrow. I walked over to the mall and bought a copy a few minutes ago. I need to finish work, go home and eat, play with the two young children for an hour or two, and then can finally play. Though maybe they'll want to see it as well.

Its World Series Night, so not much play, but I do have some early impressions.

Short Version: WOW..

Long Version:

Lets start with some of the new stuff in the game;

- Tons of new maps, all of the old maps have been updated and improved. (both skirmish, SP and MP)- 6 new Galactic Conquest Campaigns. (Playable from all three sides AND multiplayer)- 15 new planets!- New full Single Player Campaign- Vastly improved AI- New Faction (Consortium)- Advanced Base Layout (This is the overhead view allowing you to custom construct your planetary bases and defenses - outstanding)- Orbital Bombardment. (If you have big capital ships in orbit, you can call down some serious firepower from above)- Game Replay/Recording- All factions can now fight each other in any configuration you desire, so empire vs empire is possible, etc.- Ingame tech tree charts. (hitting + on the keypad brings up a gorgeous tech tree)- Full game speed control.- and more....

The new units are unbelievable! Where do I begin?- Ewok handler is hands down, the best unit in any game, ever. Period. Not even debatable. The creature handler is like that fat scruffy guy in the movies that owned the rancor. He bitches and moans as you move him around while he is dragging a huge bag filled with whining Ewoks. When you attack he grabs one out of the bag, and kicks it over to the enemy. The ewok goes nuts running around waving his arms and screaming while weaving in and out of enemy forces - the BOOOOOOOOM an huge explosion. I laughed so hard I nearly pissed my pants. Even funnier, the rebel units stood there looking at the screaming Ewok like "WTF is this things problem?" not even firing on him.

- The new droids are outstanding, droidekas absolutely own in battle and can switch between antivehicle and antipersonel mode. Fully shielded, nearly immune to many attacks. Chewbacca attacked a 3 unit squad of my droids and got his ass owned. Fantastic.

- Consortium space units are really fun and offer a lot of varied tactics. Their big battleships and destroyers pack an amazing punch with gigantic special weapons, and one has the ability to leech shields. Great stuff here.

- Vornskr, these are like wolves but are force sensative and used to track and kill Jedi.. Fantastic for hunting down Luke and his pesky friends, very fast and deadly. Best of all, you can set them to "Prowl", they will wander off and sense force and attack.

Thats about it for now, but I have to say they have completely outdone themselves on this expansion! It is early, but I am completely impressed at this point with what they have done to the game.

« Last Edit: October 25, 2006, 03:42:36 AM by Kobra »

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All truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer

Thanks for the info, Kobra. Can you expand on the improved AI comment? How and where has it improved? It pisses me off that not one fucking review of the expansion I've read so far mentions anything about the AI.

Thanks for the info, Kobra. Can you expand on the improved AI comment? How and where has it improved? It pisses me off that not one fucking review of the expansion I've read so far mentions anything about the AI.

The AI just seems more crisp in reactions. For example in space, instead of constant frontal assaults, they broke up their forces and kept taking my lesser defended areas, and better adapted to my tactics. Overall, it just seems like the AI has been tweaked a good bit.. At least that is my perception of it so far.

The force seems strong with this one, and the reviews are all coming in good.

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All truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer

I only had a little playtime, and my impressions aren't quite as favorable as Kobras. I played a couple space skirmishes, and was surprised to get my butt kicked on medium in the first game. The new Consortium space units are pretty tough. I'll have to learn more about them, as they seem very powerful, and the AI gets them fast. The AI also was much more aggressive this time, which is good. I managed to win the second skirmish, but only because the Rebels beat up the Consortium this time (I played Empire).

A few things that I liked:- graphics seemed a bit better- AI seems better- new space maps are great, and larger- great to be able to play with all 3 factions, and against the same faction

Not sure about- the balance seems to have been modified, as it seems you may really need fighter screens in front of your capital ships now. it looks like even more of a rock/paper/scissors game, at least with the space battles. your capital ships seem to get taken out a lot faster, though this may just be the new Consortium units special abilities

Still sucks:- land battles still seem the same. When you invade a planet, you're just dropped on. blah. I need to play more though, as maybe I missed an option. I didn't really get a chance with this.

Anyway, will play more tonight hopefully. Thanks for the impressions Kobra, a bit more excited about it then what I saw last night. For $30, I'll still have a ton of fun, so will my kids. The space battle is fun and simple enough that my 6 year old can play it and have a blast.

- the balance seems to have been modified, as it seems you may really need fighter screens in front of your capital ships now. it looks like even more of a rock/paper/scissors game, at least with the space battles. your capital ships seem to get taken out a lot faster, though this may just be the new Consortium units special abilities

I noticed the consortium seems entirely focused on delivering knockout punches to big empire cap ships. Which makes sense, as the Zann people always view the rebels as a secondary concern, dealt with after they deal with the empire. Zann also is aware that the empire relies heavily on their big ships - to a fault. So yeah, combined arms seems much more important in this one, be sure to bring healthy fighter cover for those cap ships, and plenty of frigate screens.

I welcome this change myself, as I always hated where as empire you could just bring out a bunch of Star Destroyers and own the field without too much combined arms action. This time, you need to play a bit more careful.

The strategic overview map is in the campaign and conquest modes, not skirmish/mp. Also note, you can go to extreme zoom like before, but now you can overlay the interface and actually play via planetary view (I key), and then speed up or slow it all down. I found land battles a good bit more tactical this time around, especially those large build-points you can control, mobile turrets and such. Instead of constant push and shove back and forth, you can setup strongpoints to push your assault, complete with build points. I think these are huge improvements over my main complaint about the ground battles. (that they were too much push and shove, and less about tactics)

« Last Edit: October 25, 2006, 04:11:58 PM by Kobra »

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All truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer

I pretty much considered myself done with EAW and rated it about an 85% game and sold my copy. Then I kept reading previous of this expansion, and my interest perked. Finally the demo arrived, and I loved it, so I grabbed it here from someone used for dirt cheap to wait for the expansion. With this expansion in place, I rate it a 95% game for me personally, I love it.

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All truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer

I haven't done much in the campaign yet, this is to come. I don't care for many games after a week, so if it lasts a week my rating of it will stand. I don't last 10 minutes in a lot of games, so a week is an accomplishment as I can put in a LOT of time during a week into a game.

Rarely does a game last beyond that though, but there are exceptions.

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All truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer